Rachael Kirkconnell is starting to set some boundaries with ex Matt James.
While sitting down with Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy to tell all about her shocking breakup from the former Bachelor in an episode published on Wednesday, Jan. 29, Kirkconnell, 28, revealed that they have been in touch following their split less than two weeks ago — but she’s since told James, 33, to stop checking in.
He was the first one to reach out, Kirkconnell said, and she woke up to a missed call at 1 a.m. a few days after getting back from Tokyo, where a small fight spiraled into a breakup, leaving her in “total shock.”
“So I called him back just to see what he wanted, and he just asked how I was doing, which I’m like, ‘How do you think I’m doing? Like, what?’ And then, yeah, I confronted him about the post,” she said, referring to his cryptic Instagram announcement that came just hours after the pair ended things.
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“I said, like, you know, that really sucked. And that’s when he was like, ‘Yeah. I fully admit that I could have handled this a lot better,’ and he apologized,” she continued. “Obviously, he made a mistake doing that, but I think he knows that, and I think he regrets it.”
That conversation went on for over an hour, though, and she said it was “weird” because they were “just talking like everything was okay.”
In the days that followed, Kirkconnell said the pair “haven’t talked a lot,” but James has reached out a handful of times. “He’s called me every, like, few days just to make sure I’m okay, but I told him that he didn’t need to do that. The last time we spoke, I was like, ‘You don’t need to call and check up on me. Like, I’ll be okay.’ And so that was that,” she shared. “I don’t know if he’s feeling bad or he just wants to see where I’m at, I don’t know.”
When Cooper, 30, asked if they’d decided to go no contact, at least for a time, Kirkconnell said they “didn’t discuss” that on any of their phone calls, but “that’s something that we probably have to do.”
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She also shut down the possibility of reconciling with him, saying, “I don’t think I can because I think when someone says those things that he said, you know, like, ‘I don’t think you’re my person. I don’t see us getting married.’ I think that’s when you have to call it quits.”
The way he “handled” the breakup, too, swayed her, with Kirkconnell explaining, “His post and everything — I forgive him, but I just don’t think I can be with someone that… I felt like he disrespected me at the end of the day doing that.”
“It’s just one of those things where you have to stand up for yourself even if you don’t want to,” she continued. “Of course, there’s part of me that wishes that we could just get back together and pretend none of this ever happened. But, yeah, that’s not the case. And I think as hard as it is, I think the right decision is to just stand up for myself and be on my own.”
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Speaking to what actually led to the split, Kirkconnell revealed it was “definitely out of nowhere” and she doesn’t think James “was planning on doing it” when he did. “I think that it was one of those things where he just came to this realization during our argument,” she shared.
“And he does love me to where I think he just wanted it to work, but I guess at the end of the day, as much as he wanted it to work and as much as he loves me, he still just doesn’t think that I’m, the person for him,” she said of his reasoning. “[The conversation] ended with him saying, ‘You know, you’re beautiful, smart, funny. You’ll find someone. I’ll never say a bad thing about you. And, yeah, we’re done.’ And I literally said, ‘Okay.’ And then I got my suitcase, went down to the lobby, got in a car, went to the airport.”
There’s no question that she was “completely blindsided,” but still, Kirkconnell admitted she “always wondered if he had doubts” about her “being his person” given how long they were together and his reluctance to propose, despite frequently talking about it. “I only had those doubts because, you know, the actions, like I said, weren’t following up with his words. So I’m like, I feel like I just wanna be with someone who is so excited to be with me and wants to wants to marry me and is excited to start a life with me,” she said.
